PROPOSAL TO LIMIT AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FACES CHALLENGE

A coalition of Hispanic groups on Friday vowed to fight Republican-sponsored legislation to curtail affirmative action admissions policies at federally supported colleges and universities across the nation.

Officials of five organizations representing the nation's estimated 30 million Hispanic residents challenged an effort by Rep. Frank Riggs, R-Calif., chairman of the House Education Committee's panel on children, youth and families, to bar federal education funds to colleges and universities that grant preferential admissions to any group.

The proposal, which the House is expected to vote on in the next two weeks, is modeled after a ballot initiative approved by California voters in 1996 that ended state affirmative action programs in hiring, contracting and education.

At a news conference on Capitol Hill, Cesar Collantes of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) warned GOP leaders that approval of Riggs' proposal would be "very disruptive" to bipartisan cooperation between the Republican majority in Congress and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus, both heavily Democratic.

"We're going into an election year," said Collantes, who heads the Washington, D.C., chapter of LULAC. "This Congress does not want to be seen as a do-nothing Congress. I'm sure they'll see the nation is focused on education."

Collantes cautioned that opponents of affirmative action could jeopardize higher education for Hispanics. He noted that Latinos, because of their growing share of the population, will be paying a large part of the payroll taxes into the Social Security system.

"Consider your own financial future," Collantes said. "Would you rather have a high school dropout paying taxes to help your Social Security check or would you rather have a Hispanic college graduate who pays more taxes toward your Social Security?"

Fifty-three percent of the nation's projected population growth by 2050 is expected to be among Hispanics, boosting their share of the nation's population from 10 percent to 24 percent.

Aguilera said a centrist coalition in the House defeated a GOP proposal to end a federal program that seeks to award 10 percent of transportation department contracts to firms owned by women or minorities.

The proposed amendment to the $219 billion highway bill was rejected, 225 to 196, on April 1.

"We have a decent trend now in Congress for defeating anti-affirmative action proposals, and hopefully that trend will continue," Aguilera said.

Carmen Joge, a civil rights policy analyst for the National Council of La Raza, said her organization will lobby legislators to reject Riggs' proposal.

Angelica Santa Cruz of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities noted that anti-affirmative action measures in California and Texas have reduced the number of Hispanic students in the states' taxpayer-financed university systems.

Riggs defended his proposal, saying it would prevent college admissions officials from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any group based on race, sex, color or national origin.

"I believe we must focus on equality of opportunity in this country, not mandate equality of results," Riggs said in a statement. "Affirmative action policies all too often discriminate against certain groups of Americans and lead to segregation rather than assimilation."